Nancy Nightingale Gillespie, PhD, RN
David R. Johnson, DNS, RN

Focus
The purpose of this naturalistic study is to examine students’ and faculty’s perceptions of combining ASN and BSN students in the classroom to teach core nursing concepts, role differentiation, and collaboration.

Significance to Nursing Education
In 1965, the American Nurses Association advocated differentiated practice (ANA, 1965). In 2002, AACN published Hallmarks of the Professional Nursing Practice Environment that states nurses’ knowledge and expertise should be recognized, compensated, and rewarded based on their educational preparation, certification, and advanced preparation (AACN, 2002). Also in 2002, nineteen nursing organizations comprised a steering committee that published Nursing’s Agenda For The Future: A Call To The Nation advocating differentiated practice and stating that clarification of nursing roles and scopes of practice should occur during students’ education (ANA, 2002). The National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission also supports teaching differentiated practice in schools of nursing (NLNAC, 2002).

Despite the support of numerous nursing organizations over the past forty years, differentiated practice is not taught in schools of nursing and is almost non-existent in the practice arena. Combining ASN and BSN students in the classroom to teach core nursing concepts, role differentiation, and collaboration is an innovative way to “walk the talk” of differentiation. As students who have been exposed to differentiated practice in school enter nursing practice, reform in the workplace will occur. Specific outcomes of this research will provide 1) a description of students’ and faculty’s perceptions of combining ASN and BSN students in the classroom, 2) data that will be presented at nursing conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals, 3) direction for faculty who are interested in developing combined ASN-BSN courses, and 4) an enumeration of educational issues that warrant further investigation.

NLN Research Priority
This study is most closely aligned with NLN’s Research-based paradigms, strategies, and evaluation modules for nursing education. A new pedagogy for nursing education will be proposed that is innovative and has the potential to become a “best practices” model for nursing education.